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Unit-1: Pioneers and Their Works in Architectural Acoustics

1. W.C. Sabine is considered the pioneer of architectural acoustics, beginning his work in the late 19th century at Harvard where he studied sound absorption and decay in rooms. 2. His key discovery was that the product of total absorption and reverberation time is a constant, helping to plan spaces like Boston's Symphony Hall. 3. Other pioneers include the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, known for its ideal acoustics for classical music created by its long reverberation time, strong bass, and clarity. 4. The 20th century saw architectural acoustics become recognized as both a science and an art, with improvements in materials and understanding of room ac

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174 views

Unit-1: Pioneers and Their Works in Architectural Acoustics

1. W.C. Sabine is considered the pioneer of architectural acoustics, beginning his work in the late 19th century at Harvard where he studied sound absorption and decay in rooms. 2. His key discovery was that the product of total absorption and reverberation time is a constant, helping to plan spaces like Boston's Symphony Hall. 3. Other pioneers include the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, known for its ideal acoustics for classical music created by its long reverberation time, strong bass, and clarity. 4. The 20th century saw architectural acoustics become recognized as both a science and an art, with improvements in materials and understanding of room ac

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saahasitha 14
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Unit-1

Pioneers and their works in Architectural Acoustics.


Shapes for auditorium halls:

Sound propagation in a (a) Rectangular room ,(b)fan-shaped room and


(c) elliptic room, without diffusing treatment
Shapes for auditorium halls:
VISUALIZATION OF SOUND
PROPAGATION IN ROOMS:

❖In architectural design of concert halls


and theatres, rectangle
(so called ‘‘shoe-box style’’), fan-shape, round
shape and ellipse are often chosen.

❖By the difference of such room shapes,


acoustic properties are much varied and
therefore the design of fundamental room
shape is an essential problem not only from
the architectural viewpoint but also from the
acoustic viewpoint.
Shapes for auditorium halls:
❖In the figure, the black circle indicates the
source position and the white one indicates
the receiving position for the calculation of
impulse response.
❖Comparison of these figures reveals that
the propagation of the wave front is much
different in each hall.
❖In the case of the rectangular room, it is
clearly seen that the number of wave front
increases with the progress of time, whereas
in the cases of the fan-shaped and elliptic
rooms, a tendency that the wave front
defects and concentrates is seen.
Shapes for auditorium halls:
❖Especially, in the case of the elliptic room, it
is clearly seen the wave front focuses at
around the source position and its
symmetrical point alternately. Figure 6(a)
shows the impulse responses at the receiving
point in each room. In these results, it is seen
that the reflections are dense and smoothly
diminishing in the case of the rectangular
room, whereas the reflections are scattered
and uneven in the fan-shaped and the elliptic
rooms.
Shapes for auditorium halls:
Shoebox Halls
Several of the orchestral halls constructed in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
are among the finest ever built. Four of them are
particularly noteworthy, both for their fine
acoustics and for their influence on later buildings.
They are all of the shoebox type with
high ceilings, multiple diffusing surfaces, and a
relatively low seating capacity.
Pioneers of Architectural Acoustics:
❖In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the
theoretical beginnings of architectural acoustics were started
by a young physics professor at Harvard College.
❖W. C. Sabine. Sabine’s work began inauspiciously enough
following a request by president Elliot to “do something”
about the acoustical difficulties in the then new Fogg Art
Museum auditorium,which had been completed in 1895
(Sabine, 1922).
❖Sabine took a rather broad view of the scope of this
mandate and commenced a series of experiments in three
Harvard auditoria with the goal of discovering the reasons
behind the difficulties in understanding speech.
❖By the time he had completed his work, he had developed
the first theory of sound absorption of materials, its
relationship to sound decay in rooms, and a formula for the
decay (reverberation) time in rooms.
❖His key discovery was that the product of the total
absorption and the reverberation time was a constant.
❖Soon after this discovery in 1898 he helped with the
planning of the Boston Music Hall, now called Symphony Hall.
Pioneers of Architectural Acoustics:

❖He followed the earlier European


examples, using a shoebox shape and
heavy plaster construction with a
modest ceiling height to maintain a
reverberation time of 1.8 seconds.
❖ Narrow side and rear balconies
were used to avoid shadow zones and
a shallow stage enclosure, with angled
walls and ceiling, directed the orchestra
sound out to the audience.
Pioneers of Architectural Acoustics:

❖The deeply coffered ceiling and


wall niches containing classical
statuary helped provide excellent
diffusion (Hunt, 1964). The
auditorium, opened in 1900 and is
still one of the three or four best
concert halls in the world.
Pioneers of Architectural Acoustics:
Scientific reasons involved in designing
Acoustical Auditorium
Grosser Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, Austria
(Beranek, 1979)

❖Grosser Musikvereinssaal also was known as the


Goldener Saal, since its interior surfaces are covered
by meticulously applied paper-thin sheets of gold leaf.
❖The sound in this hall is widely considered ideal
for Classical and Romantic music.
❖Its reverberation time is long, just over 2 seconds
when fully occupied, and the narrowness of the
space provides for strong lateral reflections that
surround or envelop the listener in sound.
❖The walls are constructed of thick plaster that
supports the bass, and the nearness of the reflecting
surfaces and multiple diffusing shapes gives an
immediacy and clarity to the high strings.
❖ It is this combination of clarity, strong bass, and
long reverberation time that is highly prized in
concert halls, but rarely achieved.
Twentieth century designs
❖In the twentieth century, architectural acoustics
came to be recognized as a science as well as an
art.
❖The more routine aspects includes of room
acoustics, including noise and vibration control
and development of effective acoustical materials,
experienced marked improvements.
❖The development of electro-acoustic devices
including microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers
and other electronic processing instruments
flourished.
❖The precision, which is now available in the
ability to record and reproduce sound, has in a
sense created an expectation of excellence that is
difficult to match in a live performance.
❖The high-frequency response in a hall is never
as crisp as in a close-miked recording.
❖The performance space is seldom as quiet as a
recording studio.
Pioneers of Architectural Acoustics:
❖The seats are never as comfortable as in a living
room. Ironically, just as we have begun to
understand the behavior of concert halls and are
able to accurately model their behavior, electro-
acoustic technology has developed to the point
where it may soon provide an equivalent or even
superior experience in our homes.

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